Well, as you can imagine, my lack of presence here posting means I’ve been busy and somewhat distracted with all sorts of things of late. Things have been happening that have meant I haven’t had the chance to update the site as much as I’d have liked to.

I’d have liked to put more on here, such as updates and such (and yes, I do have stuff to tell you about!) but organisation isn’t my greatest strong point, so I’ll be posting some catch-up stuff shortly, which I hope some of you will be interested in. Also I’d like to point out that of late the posts that I have been putting out, have to me at least, seem to have been a little salesy-spammy which is something I don’t like to do here that much, I feel that while it’s important to update online current Grinning Skull related merch and releases, good content is king, so loads of adverts don’t sit well and I’d much prefer to put out some articles that I feel that you lot would appreciate and get something out of.

Of course, I’m going to have to advertise my shit, but I don’t want anyone to feel like I’m becoming the metorphorical Jehovas Witness of the hobby world, that annoying twat who’s always flogging their brand of gaming religion to everyone who clearly ain’t listening! It’s a balancing act that is getting more difficult to do, as you appreciate things like Grim’s Dungeons of Doom tutorials take some time and planning to get sorted, so other stuff on the content creation side gets priority over free stuff. that’s not to say that I won’t be posting articles like that, on the contrary, I’m planning right now a new series of tutorials to coincide with my forays into my lot playing Osprey’s Rogue Stars, something which I’m lacking a table full of 28mm Sci-fi scenery and painted models, which need to be done for us to play. Sci-fi terrain making is my preferred theme (as you might have guessed by the 15mm stuff I’ve done on here) but I’m guessing that this will appeal to the 40k crowd as well as other 28mm sci-fi gamers too.

Also, I’m planning a PDF digest or two of “Grim’s Dungeons of Doom” material from the articles already published. I’ll be cleaning it up, adding new bits, articles and pics and collating it in a nice ebook format for download over on our various DriveThruRPG, RPGnow and Wargamevault publisher store pages, and possibly a limited print copy run if there’s a few who are interested.

On the Grinning Skull Miniatures front, there’s also stuff going on, and some of you might know new releases are afoot, last month saw the Little Killa clowns released from Alternative Armies. We are also gearing up for more new releases in the line, B.E.A.R.S., Klorzid mutant plants, more Zarglian Invaders are forthcoming, so expect to see more about these in the near future. Also, whilst I haven’t had much opportunity to get some sculpting done due to time commitments, that is not to say my ideas are dead in the water, and I have a whole heap of mad ideas for other models in the line, and also some more traditional miniatures I’d like to pump out in some way shape or form. The Grinning Skull miniature line was always intended to push the envelope with unusual and weird models that are not seen anywhere else, so expect more in the way of my bizarre brainfarts. Things like Giant Killer babies, Alien Starship crews, genetically modified sentient fruit and veg, plus more additions to the Zarglian Empire, Evil X-TED teddies, malfunctioning robotic psychos, more killer clowns & Circus freaks, more alien monsters and maybe a few Chukk and Oggum too!

Also, I’d like to turn my hand to some more traditional fantasy miniatures, since the Grinning Skull line is more Sci-fi weirdness, I’d like to get some of my trademark stylings into my own interpretation of the usual fantasy fare. I have tons of concept sketches and notes for things like Trolls, Goblins, and some of my own inventions I’ve come up with.
Grimlins (a imp-like race of demonic creatures), Trolkyn (Small troll related infantry that would serve as Goblin and Orc Proxies) and Monstaaz (Comedy demonesque minion critters that would serve as cannon fodder in chaos or demon armies) Couple these with a load of big beasties, Trolls, Ogres, Giants, Minotaurs, and a whole heap of my interpretations of creatures, and you have what I’d like to call something like “Fantasical Freaks” or “Brain Damage” Miniatures, a separate line from Grinning Skull Minis, but how long it’ll be before these ideas will materialise into the real world is unknown as yet, but it’s part of my long-term plan. Maybe these will figure in a future Kickstarter or Indiegogo crowdfunder, although this time it’ll be better planned and executed!

However, ideas are one thing, doing the legwork or simply having time and resources to bring these into the flesh are another. I’m resonably confident 95% or more of these will see the light of day, that is providing new things don’t take precedence over them or I kick the bucket, or something strange happens (Alien abduction, trapped in a mirror realm, dimensional wormhole, lost in a prehistoric world etc.)

On top of all this, we’ll be ploughing ahead with more PDF releases as usual, as we head to almost 200 titles, I want to celebrate this milestone, with something special around the new year (Got a few ideas, but you’ll have to wait) and plans for more to come in 2018, plus I want to see if we can get to 400 before 2018 is out!!

As ever, I welcome your comments, ideas, feedback, and thoughts, plus I’m always up for collabs and such like projects if you’re interested in stuff like that!

Next up will be an October End of the month round-up, plus More Grinning Skull Miniatures stuff.

Watching & catching up with your fave shows these days is a lot easier in this day and age, what with the event of the smart TV and internet, but I’m also finding it a pain too.
I don’t know if you agree with me or not, but with just the sheer amount of good telly available now, it’s also a real pain finding the time to watch what I want too!

I’ve just got around to catching up with the latest series of HBO’s Game of Thrones – Season 7 [DVD] [2017], which was pretty damn good I think you’d agree (Littlefinger getting slashed in the throat, classic!!) and I got around to seeing The Defenders on Netflix (Loved that too!)
My trouble with it all is that it seems like a trek just trying to get up to date on everything. I’m behind with The Flash, I’m behind with DC Legends of Tomorrow S2 [DVD] [2017], Bob’s Burgers: The Complete 4th Season, Agents of Shield, Supergirl and a whole host of other TV shows and as time goes on, it’s going to get very overwhelming indeed.

Don’t get me wrong, I love me some Genre TV shows, it’s much better than it used to be back in the day, I just think that maybe it’s too much. (Will we all have square eyes?)

The way we are consuming media like this these days is changing to be sure, and I’m not going to diss it all, as the standard is right up there, more so than movies in some respects, but at the rate we are going, how long before it all goes tits up? you know, when will there be a fly in the ointment? (so to speak)

Somehow, there are so many great programs on the box, I’m going to have to ditch some of it just so I have time to do other stuff, that is more pressing matters (Hey, I’ve got an empire to build here!) Fear the Walking Dead – Season 2 [DVD] will have to wait!

I was just wondering how others feel about this, do any of you share these views, or do you disagree?

Hello everyone, I hope you are all feeling great today and life is treating you well.
I’m here to let you know about our new hobby advertising initiative here
at Grinning Skull Studios, that is for any advertiser in the RPG/Wargaming/gaming field.

We are happy to offer a full page colour advertisment in our PDF releases for $10
per month (Our usual RRP: $30) limited to the first 10 advertisers who apply. We release at least 6 new titles monthly, and for jut $10 per month, your full page ad will be included in every title for the month.

Considered advert genres include:

All RPG media & companies,

All Wargaming media, companies, miniatures & equipment/supplies,

Video games,

All LARP media & promotion,

Horror media, film & fiction,

Fantasy media, film & fiction,

Sci-fi media, film & fiction,

Genre Websites,

Comics media,

Crafts & handmade items,

Anything that fits into our niche (please contact me for details)

All our customers are Wargamers & Rpgers, so you can garauntee that your ads will get FULL VISIBILITY from our targetted niche market. $10 wont get you much more than a small meal and a coffee these days, so get in touch with me if you’d like to
discuss more about this deal! (contact me via the page in the menu!)

Well, it’s been a while, hasn’t it? Well, as you can see, I have been suffering a variety of tech issues which have kept me offline quite a bit.

Hopefully, everything is on the mend now, so I’d like to apologise for not completing the June post a day challenge, so sorry for that, it was out of my control.

I’m still catching up on work (a lot of it got corrupted or wiped) so, while I get ahead, things will be a bit slow here. Obviously, I’ll be updating about new releases and such, so there will be a bit of self-promo (hey, I need the links don’t I?) so I’ll apologise again before the deluge of promotional posts start.

I’d be grateful if you’d take a gander at my new titles (of which so far there are about 10 or so) and see if you’d like to purchase one or two, or if not pass the link to those who it might find it of use.

A subject not talked about on here for ages is that of the Clown sightings of the past few years. The worldwide craze started by the Northampton Clown, caused much fear and loathing in the community in the UK and US and started a viral sensation that now is but a distant memory.

September sees the release of the new version of Stephen King’s seminal horror, “IT” which I’m sure that we are all familiar with. The movie looks like something most fans of the horror genre will be looking forward to, but maybe not if you’re caulrophobia (Phobic of clowns) but the whole thing has got me thinking that while the whole craze is old hat now, we might be seeing a resurgence of such antics again once the movie has been released.

If you haven’t seen the trailer for the new film yet, where have you been? No longer will we see the great Tim Curry don the guise of the infamous “Pennywise the dancing clown”, but now Bill Skarsgard will play the evil alien entity who disguises itself as a variety of head fucks to feast on the young residents of the town of Derry.

For those of you who haven’t seen the trailer, here it is before we carry on with the discourse.

Looks ok, but the proof of the pudding will be seeing the movie in its entirety. It does look as if the movie will deal with the first part of the story (when they were kids) with a sequel in the works probably to carry on the second part of the story (when they are adults) and have to face “IT” once more to stop its reign of terror.

This aside, I’m pretty sure we are going to get the onslaught of clown sightings as a response to the movie’s release. There will always be some joker (get it?!) ready to put on the clown suit and mask and start scaring people for a variety of reasons, be it for publicity, for viral hits or simply to spite those who live in fear of clowns. This is a big issue, seriously bigger than you’d realise, some people really do have a proper fear of all things clown. the last time I blogged about them, at one point I received 160,000 hits in a day just on one post about the subject and over 100 private messages and emails! A real boost for my humble site stats for sure, but a real eye-opener in terms of how much this subject affects people’s lives and psyches.

I recently took my kids to the circus, myself hoping that the clown/s there would be creepy enough to entertain me (well, I’m not scared of clowns if you’re wondering) but what I ended up finding is that “real career clowns” if I can call them that, are somewhat watered down compared to the traditional idea, which for me at least was a bit disappointing!

What I will do here, is monitor the subject in the media over the course of the movie release, and what I find, I will blog about. One thing is assured this time, is that if my own area sees the return of the Doncaster Clown (or other pretenders to the title) I will try my best to get an interview with the guy, in fact, if there are any other regional clowns, I’ll also try to start up a conversation with them, just to see what motivates these folks to do what they do!

Who knows, I might end up making some clown related PDFs, minis or similar type stuff to cash in on the craze (well, if it happens) and the very least should help me shift some books!

Whatever happens, mark my words. The clowns will return, and I’ll be here to keep you up to date with the associated craziness that comes along with it! Let me know your thoughts and comments on the subject!

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Miniature Wargaming

So, it’s been a while since the Grinning Skull Miniature line has had any new additions, but fear not, in true honour of Pennywise the Dancing Clown and all things Halloween, we have some lovely little murder dwarves to use in your miniature based games! These diminutive and horrible harlequins are suitable for either 15mm, 20mm […]

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Busy, Busy, Busy… Well, as you can imagine, my lack of presence here posting means I’ve been busy and somewhat distracted with all sorts of things of late. Things have been happening that have meant I haven’t had the chance to update the site as much as I’d have liked to. I’d have liked to […]

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So, with Osprey’s Rogue Stars ( Rogue Stars: Skirmish Wargaming in a Science Fiction Underworld (Osprey Wargames) ) winging its way to me through the post (yes, I succumbed to it in the end, the temptation was far too great!) I really look forward to getting it so I can have a really good read to […]

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So, been browsing about, and I’ve noticed Rogue Stars: Skirmish Wargaming in a Science Fiction Underworld (Osprey Wargames), which has caught my eye with a prospect of getting it. I absolutely know jack s**t about it, only that it seems like an attempt at a mini skirmish game attempt from Osprey to get some of […]

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We’re on the home straight now, with the final part of this month’s releases so far (There are more to come, trust me) so, here’s this part for those of you into Miniature gaming… Quick Quest Poster maps. The Quick Quest poster map range is new, and each includes a massive sectional print out giant […]

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Join the G+ Zombie Wargaming Community

Zombies, zombies, zombies...

Well, as the saying goes, better late than never, indeed we are a few days late in posting the mammoth load of Grinning Skull studios publications that were released last month. I actually think that it’s a new record here, which also leaves us only 31 releases left before we hit 200 Grinning Skull publications in […]

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Yet again, I’m back with another new PDF, this time with a new addition to the modern horror themed apocalypse range of model detailing; Apocalypse 28mm: Warnings and notices of the dead. This is a collection of modern horror zombie themed signage to add to your models and projects. This PDF can be used with […]

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Hello there everyone, just a quick post (or shameless plug!) to tell you that the 15mm Newspapers and Magazines PDFs previously available from the download section here, have now been cleaned up and spliced together and are available for download directly from Wargames Vault. Now entitled Apocolypse 15mm: Newspapers & Magazine Debris, it contains all […]

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I have some weird ideas for wargames, and while most can be somewhat surreal at times, there are some that really stick in my head. A lot of these would be ideal games for conventions as they aren’t really ideas you’d use in a campaign over the course of a few sessions. These would prove […]

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There’s so much cool stuff for 28mm wargaming these days, it almost makes me want to start the switch back over. The choice and availability for the scale seems to far outstrip the rest that for most, it’s classed as god’s own scale! Regulars to the site will recognise this latest KS from the […]